Shares of Tesla fell to 4.6% on Friday morning. (File)
Tesla Inc. does it have the potential to be a $ 1 trillion company? It’s an idea that got Elon Musk tweeting early Friday, just for the billionaire to do something pretty weird for him: delete a post.
The exchange began with a tweet from an account that regularly contains promotional posts about Tesla and “Full Self-Driving,” a package the company sells along with its Autopilot driver assistance system. The set of features often known as FSD is controversial because of Tesla’s mixed messaging – the company tells drivers who use it that they need to be totally attentive.
“The FSD is the largest in history,” user @WholeMarsBlog wrote. “Tesla will be bigger than Apple.”
I think there is a> 0% chance that Tesla is the biggest company
– Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 26, 2021
Musk, the CEO of Tesla, responded that he believes there is “a> 0% chance that Tesla is the largest company.” After another user wrote that they loved “the direction of this arrow,” Musk replied, “Probably in a few months.”
Musk quickly deleted this last post. It is unclear whether he thought better send it or was asked to withdraw the tweet.
Shares of Tesla fell to 4.6% on Friday morning. Shares were down 3.7% at 12:55 p.m. in New York.
As part of an agreement reached with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in 2018 related to Musk’s tweets about the company’s deprivation, Tesla agreed to hire a securities lawyer to review social media posts. of executives and ensure that they are consistent with disclosure policies and procedures. Tesla also agreed to oversee Musk’s communications, specifically, and to approve in advance anything that contains information material to the company or shareholders.
Hours before Friday’s exchange, the National Labor Relations Board ruled that Tesla had repeatedly violated U.S. labor law and had to have Musk remove a tweet threatening to punish workers if they unionized. He has not yet retired from that position.
With a market capitalization of nearly $ 600 billion, Tesla has a long way to go to move to Apple Inc. as the largest company in the world. The market value of the iPhone maker is about $ 2 trillion.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)